A new generation is settling down

As millennials have entered their 30s, they’ve gradually begun to show interest in homeownership.

By Gail MarksJarvis / Tribune News Service

Millennials are finally starting to show interest in homeownership.

Weighed down by massive student debt and job struggles, the generation brutalized by the Great Recession has lacked both the money and the desire to buy homes. They’ve been a generation of renters.

But as millennials have entered their 30s, established themselves financially and started having families, they’ve gradually begun to show interest in homeownership, according to Fannie Mae economist Douglas Duncan.

To be sure, millennials still trail other generations in home buying by a long shot. But they are making gains as they age.

“They were hard hit by the economy, went back to college because they couldn’t find jobs and got a later start,” said Duncan. “They will start catching up.”

The trend comes as a relief to real estate agents desperate to sell homes and economists worried that the economy would remain bogged down without enough first-time homebuyers. Typically, 20- and 30-somethings play an essential role in the economy and housing market. They become first-time homebuyers, filling their new homes with everything from appliances to yard equipment. Millennial home purchases also give older generations the chance to sell their own houses and move up.

Millennials are coming of age as homebuyers, though, just as housing prices are climbing and a lack of homes in some markets is causing bidding wars.

Surveys of millennials show most are mindful of their budgets. They are a practical generation that watched parents struggle to hold onto jobs and homes as unemployment soared to 10 percent and housing prices crashed 30 percent in the Great Recession.

Millennials seem to be doing at a later age exactly what their parents’ generation did when younger, Duncan said. Millennials as a generation have delayed marriage and have waited for several years for the job market and pay to improve. But as incomes rise and they marry and get ready for children, they are less interested in cramming into studio apartments in high-demand areas, and start searching for homes or condos they can afford to buy.